United States of Tara

Today, episode 5 of the second season of United States of Tara aired on Showtime. I don't have Showtime, so I didn't see it, but I did watch episodes 3 and 4 today, since I am sick. I am so excited for that show to finally be back! I absolutely loved the first season, the writing is amazing, Toni Collette is amazing and the rest of the cast is pretty dang good too!

In case you have never seen the show, it basically revolves around Tara, a mother of two and artist, who has dissociative identity disorder. DID is the new term for split personalities, which Tara has 4 of in season one. There is Tara, the mother and 'main' personality; Alice, the 1950s housewife; T, the 16-year-old rebellious teenager and Buck, the guy (!!). Yes, one of her alters thinks he's a guy. Last year at the Emmy and the Golden Globe Awards, Toni Collette won Best Actress awards for her portrayal of Tara and her alters. She really deserved those awards, because she plays each of those alters so distinctively that even with just looking at her face you can see which alter is in control at a given point in time.

But it's not just Toni Collette who does an outstanding job, even though she certainly stands out. All of the main characters are played by great actors, I mostly adore Rosemarie DeWitt as Tara's sister Charmaine and Brie Larson as Tara's daughter Kate. I love how Charmaine is secretly jealous of Tara's disorder, because she always gets all the attention. Kate's outfits basically rock completely, even though I don't always like them, but they are just so unique and so Kate, I love it!

The writing is really good and it has a lot to do with Diablo Cody's creative talent. Obviously, 'Juno' was no one-hit wonder and her Best Screenplay Oscar well deserved. The storylines are all fascinating and as a whole the show seems very realistic. There are no plot points whose only purpose seems to be to create drama, because the alters and the family's life already is dramatic enough.

I just really love everything about this show and I can't wait to watch the next episode!

[I might start writing weekly recaps of USoT, but I don't want to give anything away in case my 5 readers aren't watching the show. So let me know whether you would like to read recaps or not. I'll put spoiler warnings up in any case, if I do decide to recap the show.]

Emmy nominations!

As I've mentioned before, I really like award shows! Today, the 2009 Emmy Nominations were announced and I'm already excited because I will be able to watch the Emmies live and not in the middle of the night! I have to admit that I don't actually watch too many of the shows that are nominated, but I was actually pleased that 'Grey's Anatomy' wasn't nominated for an award. I think this reflects the poor quality and writing that about half of season 5 was. I am, however, very happy that both Sandra Oh and Chandra Wilson are nominated, because those two actresses kick ass on screen! I wish they had considered Brooke Smith, but she was only in 7 episodes and so I can see why they didn't, even though she was FREAKIN' AWESOME in those 7 episodes.

I'm also very excited about Kyra Sedgwick and Toni Colette being nominated as 'Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama/Comedy Series'. I am keeping my fingers crossed for Toni Colette because she showed so many facets of her great talent in 'United States of Tara'. I can't believe I haven't posted about my love for USoT and Toni in it before.

The other nominations that made me smile and go *YAY* are: Tony Shalhoub for Monk (I can identify with him so much), Hugh Laurie for House, Cherry Jones for 24 (I haven't seen her in it, but DYKE!! That just makes me happy, a lesbian playing the first female president.), 'Real Time with Bill Maher' in the new category 'Outstanding Variety, Music Or Comedy Series' along with 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report', 'Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List' and 'Kathy Griffin: She'll Cut a Bitch' (Love her comedy specials, she sometimes goes a little far on her show, but she's funny anyways).

So that's my Emmy excitement for now. Let's hope for pretty dresses and for at least one of the Grey's Girls to win the award this year - since both have been nominated before (Oh 4 times, Wilson 3 times).